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Great Podcast, Your discussion of The Tomb was entertaining and informative. I look forward to further podcasts. I plan to read or reread every story prior to listening to the podcast. Thanks for the effort you have put into this production.

Chad Fifer on

July 16, 2009 at 9:51 AM

Thanks, Dave! We’ll have the new one up sometime next week. Glad to hear we’re not just broadcasting to the void.

Jada on

July 16, 2009 at 10:15 AM

great podcast really enjoying the insight & the recaps!
please make many more!

David on

July 16, 2009 at 8:47 PM

Ghost Disco. Gentlemen, outstanding, no wonder they cast you in CofC Chad

I’m laughing so hard, I almost spilled my wine….

Kenneth Hite on

July 18, 2009 at 1:03 AM

Thanks for the “Tour de Lovecraft” plug, guys!

We’ll have to agree to disagree about “The Tomb,” but you’ll be glad to know that HPL did, in fact, see nymphs and dryads when he was a kid — or so he claimed in his “Confession of Unfaith”:

“When about seven or eight I was a genuine pagan, so intoxicated with the beauty of Greece that I acquired a belief in the old gods and nature
sprits. I have in literal truth built altars to Pan, Apollo, and Athena, and have watched for dryads and satyrs in the woods and fields at dusk.
Once I firmly thought I beheld some kind of sylvan creatures dancing under autumnal oaks; a kind of ‘religious experience’ as true in its way
as the subjective ecstasies of a Christian. If a Christian tell me he has felt the reality of his Jesus or Jahveh, I can reply that I have seen hoofed Pan and the sisters of the Hesperian Phaëthusa.”

Great podcast; I’m looking forward to “Dagon”!

Chris Lackey on

July 18, 2009 at 2:15 AM

That is an awesome quote! This bit of information could spin into hours of conversation. Man.

Thank you so much for your kind words. I really love your book, ‘Tour de Lovecraft’ and I will most likely quote it again in the future. Congrats on the Origins award!

Genus Unknown on

July 18, 2009 at 3:13 AM

Thoroughly enjoying the podcasts. It’s like casually talking lit with the Lovecraft nerd friends I don’t actually have in real life. Looking forward to more episodes, and particularly to hearing you dance around the cat’s name in “The Rats in the Walls.”

Phil on

July 20, 2009 at 6:32 PM

“The Tomb” is one of my favorites and you guys did a great job with it. Very informative and entertaining to say the least. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to number 3! Thanks again.

Dennis Calero on

July 21, 2009 at 6:58 PM

Love the podcast so far! (not that Im waiting for you to suck). If at some point you could go back to Lovecraft’s connections to other writer’s playing in his sandbox, so to speak, I would love for you guys to talk about something I’ve read about but never had the time to really look into, which is that Robert E. Howard, who often wrote to Lovecraft, claimed that his character Conan’s world was set firmly in the Cthulu mythos, albeit the long ago past. Any chance on doing a show on this? Thanks!!

chrislackey on

July 21, 2009 at 7:46 PM

Well, we’re trying to stick to H.P.’s stories as much as possible. Perhaps we might do an “extra” about Howard & Lovecraft.

We’ll think it over. Good idea.

Chad Fifer on

July 21, 2009 at 7:47 PM

I’d love to learn more about Howard – I really love the Conan comics. I’ll have to try and get more info on those settings Howard cribbed from HPL so we can address it when they come up in the stories. Thanks!

Genus Unknown on

August 2, 2009 at 2:41 AM

The weird thing about Howard is his need, and surprising ability, to inject a little good ol’-fashioned two-fisted adventure into his horror stories. See: “The Hoofed Thing,” which starts out as a fairly creepy little yarn about a guy with ‘something’ in his upstairs room. By the end of the story our narrator has figured out the horrible truth, but instead of going insane like a Lovecraft character would, he grabs a by-god sword off the mantelpiece and goes out to rescue his fiancee and kick a little Otherworldly Horror ass.

Howard kinda strikes me as the sort of guy who would pick on Lovecraft in high school, come to think of it.

John on

January 6, 2010 at 11:44 AM

Slowly working my way through your podcasts (Up to episode 8) and I’m enjoying your work. I just wanted to look up the band you referenced in this episode (without having to listen to the episode again)

The band who grabbed their title off a line out of this story. Any chance of a link?

Chad Fifer on

January 6, 2010 at 11:47 AM

I believe you’re wondering about The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets?

Not only Kenneth Hite mentioned that this story is very similiar to the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, also S.T. Joshi calls it “one of Lovecraft’s most Poe-esque tales.” So I guess that Chris must be wrong with saying that the only thing similiar is that both Poe’s stories and “The Tomb” are “scary, creepy stories.”

I like the format of those earlier podcasts much more than the newer ones. In the “Call of Cthulhu” episodes you nearly just read the story the whole time. Such a detailed retelling of a story really isn’t necessary, because who listens to the podcast without having read the story that is discussed? That would be stupid, because no matter how creepy the music and the noises in the background of the podcast sound, reading the original story can only be better, because it’s longer and more descriptive.
I think your assumption should be that each listener already knows the story and you only give a quick overview to bring back details. Otherwise there is no room left for discussion and I’d rather spent my time listening to an unabridged audio book version of the story.
Sentences or passages you really liked also can be discussed afterwards (like in this podcast.)

When you are through all of the fiction Lovecraft wrote as an adult, will you come back to his Juvenilia? “The Alchemist,” for example, is a pretty good story and “The Beast in the Cave” is also decent. Furthermore there is a discarded draft of “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” which probably will be very interesting to discuss in your coverage of that story.

SG on

June 29, 2010 at 9:51 AM

The Thickets Rock!

jc on

August 8, 2010 at 10:35 AM

Truly triumphant. I do a lot of commuting and listen to podcasts in the car. Recently stumbled down some slimy stairs and found yours. I love the humor and intelligence of the discussion. Love Lovecraft, but I like that you can say irreverant things like ghost disco too. Keep up the great work, look forward to working through the podcasts.

ps. thoughts on cleansing lighting strikes as similar to Poe’s in House of Usher?

S.E. Matthews on

July 1, 2013 at 5:13 PM

I’ve watched the movie “The Tomb”. I forced my friend to watch it with me because H.P. Lovecraft is cool and at the time, I was under the impression that anything related to his stuff must therefore be equally cool. Let me say, I have seen some bad horror movies. This is probably not the worst, but it’s right on up there. It has absolutely nothing to do with the story. I think the Necronomicon is brought in briefly at the end, but that’s about the closest Lovecraftian thing in this movie. A guy traps a bunch of people who’ve done him wrong in a dungeon. My personal favorite is a used car salesman who is trapped because, as the madman writes in his journal, the salesman “sold me a lemon”. That’s scrawled in bold letters. I wish I had the time this dude does to trap all the random people who piss me off. I’d have the guy who “cut me off in traffic” and the girl who “didn’t flush”.

John on

April 2, 2014 at 12:18 PM

Where can I hear this episode? It doesn’t seem to be available on the podcast anymore.

hppodcraft on

April 2, 2014 at 5:28 PM

The episode was down but LIVES AGAIN!!!

Melissa Hearne on

August 27, 2014 at 9:58 AM

Hi Chris & Chad! I just re-listened to this episode. Really well done! I’m curious if you would consider doing a full narration of The Tomb. It’s in the public domain now and I’ve looked around for a good rendition and have been disappointed the narration I’ve heard.

[…] first of Lovecraft’s short stories that Chad and Chris covered was The Tomb, written almost a century ago in 1917 when Lovecraft was just 27 years old. You can read the full […]

Maureen on

January 1, 2015 at 1:30 PM

This podcast is my introduction to Lovecraft. I have trouble with reading processing and I have put off reading his work, although I love darker literature. Your podcast has made it easier for me to enjoy his writing.